Suicide prevention tool available online for free

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 (Getty Images)

This story discusses suicide.  If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

Kentuckians who want to learn how to help prevent suicide can do so through a new free online suicide prevention training tool. 

This training comes from University of Kentucky Healthcare and is called QPR, which means Question, Persuade and Refer. These words refer to the steps a person can take to help prevent suicide. 

During this roughly hour-long training, UK says, people “learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis, how to respond to someone in crisis and where to refer someone in need of help.” 

Julie Cerel, a suicidologist and professor in UK’s College of Social Work, said in a statement that “knowing how to ask if someone is thinking about suicide and getting a person at risk to the appropriate resources will help keep people alive.” 

The training is free to anyone in the state and available here: https://kyqpr.ukhc.org/. 

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths by suicide increased in 2022 from 2021 levels.  Someone died every 11 minutes in 2021 from suicide, and more than 12 million Americans thought about it. 

Overall, suicide rates were on the rise between 2000-2018, according to CDC data. The numbers dipped in 2020 but nearly reached the 2018 peak again by 2021. In 2021, at least 816 Kentuckians died by suicide. 

For emergency help in suicide prevention or other mental health crises, call or text 988. 

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